5 ms·
> “take a novel problem that they haven't seen before and break it down” But who does that professionally as a stand-up performance, clock ticking, a judge bre
by pavlov 4y ago
> “take a novel problem that they haven't seen before and break it down”
But who does that professionally as a stand-up performance, clock ticking, a judge breathing down your neck who has been equipped with a script that tells him things like “if candidate doesn’t do X within the first ten minutes it’s very bad”?
Doing well in that situation depends more on social performance skills than problem-solving skills. You’re essentially trying to infer the interview script that the interviewer has in mind and act it out convincingly.
If someone says “I’d like to start by taking ten minutes alone in another room and think it out first”, will they get hired? Probably not. It’s not the expected performance even if the solution is fine.
- reidjs 4y agoThat’s why he says this approach is more likely to produce false negatives than false positives
- gymbeaux 4y agoFalse negatives are always better than false positives. Every company who does leetcode interviews agrees with that.
- hnfong 4y agoAs for the time limit, it's relative. All things equal, if you can complete the problem in 10 minutes and the company can hire somebody that can complete it in 9, then objectively the other candidate is the stronger one. As for nervousness for being forced to partaking in a stand-up performance, I'd argue that "social performance skills" can work against you, since the more "antisocial" you are, the more you can ignore (or are oblivious to) what other people think about you and you can focus on your task. It's only people who actually have the minimum requisite "social skills" that would be conscious of other people intensely watching them "perform". But even if you're right -- interviewing is inherently a "social performance" activity. If you're not coding you're doing some other stand up performance to present yourself anyway.
- robin_reala 4y agoThey’re only objectively the strong candidate if that’s the sole thing the company values. It’s unusual for that to be the case.
- hnfong 4y agoWith the "all things equal" qualifier, it's sufficient that completing the task faster is a positive signal rather than a negative one. I mean, this is very elementary.
- Retric 4y agoNormal interviews are mostly a scripted performance where people largely regurgitate answers to predictable questions. So the issue isn’t that it’s a stand up performance it’s that you need to split your attention between the performance and solving some trivial problem. Becoming really good at programming requires being able to focus on an actually difficult problem not work through a simplified example while entertaining an audience. There might be a correlation between solving trivial problems quickly and being able to figure out a heisenbug from some multithreaded monstrosity, but it’s not strong enough for minor differences in performance to be meaningful.
- hnfong 4y ago> Normal interviews are mostly a scripted performance where people largely regurgitate answers to predictable questions. Ah, so you prefer being asked "where do you see yourself in 5 years?", and regurgitating the text generated by ChatGPT instead? Alternatively, as I replied in the sibling thread, do you prefer to be handed a difficult take home task that is expected to take 2 weeks to complete? I think I can live with the first, but I'd be insane to work 80 hours on a task just for a small chance to get a job.
- Retric 4y ago“Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” is asking a perfectly reasonable question about what if anything you’re working towards. If you think regurgitating something from ChatGPT is appropriate, I can see why you might prefer more limited interviews.
- kps 4y agoYes. I did this type of interview for a previous job, and don't want to do it again. I'm a software developer, not a salesman. Requiring salesmanship to enter a company may well correlate with requiring salesmanship to advance and be recognized at the company. (I don't regret that job, because the rank-and-file were great, but I don't want the same structure of overlords.) This time around, I am fortunate to have effectively lifelong runway, so I'm now trying to handle an interview as if I were discussing a problem with a co-worker. If that filters me out, that's probably best for me, too.
- jvanderbot 4y agoGiven two candidates who can break down problems, I'd prefer to hire the one who can do it with a gun to their head (metaphorically, of course). Lord knows owners, ceos, board members, managers, and angry co workers would often enough like to put a gun to my head.
- throwaway5959 4y agoI’d suggest not working for people who like to put a gun to your head, euphemism or not.
- adave 4y agoWhat's wrong with hiring for interviewers to be this nihlistic.
- jvanderbot 4y agoWorking well under pressure is a skill too.
- gymbeaux 4y agoWhy? We don’t have animals hunting us and a constant need to fend for food and water like our ancestors did. Why in 2023 should anyone be under pressure for anything to do with their job?
- jvanderbot 4y agoIdeally, there would be no pressure involved. But in reality, there are pressures associated with deliveries and conflicting goals. You don't have to look far for these, and hiring for the ideal conditions is unrealistic.
- 908B64B197 4y ago> If someone says “I’d like to start by taking ten minutes alone in another room and think it out first”, will they get hired? Probably not. It’s not the expected performance even if the solution is fine. When interviewing I always start with a discussion about the problem. On the whiteboard. I'm explicit with the candidate that this is totally expected. I'm actually measuring something perhaps more important than the code that will get written later: can this person formulate a plan and have a technical discussion.
- gymbeaux 4y agoBut what you don’t know is whether people who didn’t give a stellar performance would have gone on to be adequate or even excellent hires.